Here we take our passage for Campeche on the Asturia, a diminutive, small steamer, having but four Liliputian berths; luckily enough we are the only passengers; had it been otherwise, we must have kept on deck day and night. The sea is like an immense sheet of glass, the heavens radiant with stars; our boat draws very little water, so that we skirt close to the shore, and are able to follow the graceful panorama which unfolds before us; and in the morning early we cast anchor four miles off Campeche because of the high surf, but the outline of which is plainly visible.
CAMPECHE.
Campeche was built on the site of an Indian city, and visited by Antonio Cordova in his first ill-fated expedition (1517). “The natives,” says Diaz, “were friendly, and took us to extensive buildings which had in them idols and sanctuaries. These edifices were built of lime and sand. On the walls were enormous serpents, and near them paintings representing their idols, round a kind of altar stained with drops of blood still quite fresh. On one side of the idols were painted human figures massed in the shape of a cross. We were amazed at the sight of things so strange, as we watched numbers of natives, men and women, come in to get a sight of us with smiling, unconcerned countenances.”[154] But the scene soon changes; osier braziers, for burning copal, are brought, and the priests tell the Spaniards to leave the shore immediately under penalty of death. The Spaniards sailed away, and did not settle at Campeche until 1541.
These ancient mounds, these temples, with their ceremonial and gory priests, carry us back to Mexico; but it would be vain to look for traces of such buildings along the coast, or in the proximity of Spanish settlements. In process of time Campeche became the most nourishing city of the peninsula, and was plundered several times by French and English privateers. To stop these frequent devastations, a strong wall was built around to enable its inhabitants to rest in peace. But the wall, built for safety, seems now to oppress the town, which has outgrown it, and is spreading outside, where wealthy merchants have “quintas,” in whose gardens the rich tropical flora displays its magnificence, casting a multicoloured belt about the town.
Campeche, with its tortuous suburbs, its drawbridges, its unsymmetrical high buildings, is the least Eastern-looking place in Mexico, and boasts no monuments worthy of mention. Our steamer stopped some hours here, giving me the opportunity to pay a long-promised visit to Don F. Ferrer, a charming correspondent, under whose hospitable roof I spent one of the pleasantest days I can remember, amidst music and pleasant talk. We returned to our steamer en route for Carmen in the afternoon, and I looked forward to having the whole boat to myself, when a large canoe full of people rowed up alongside just as we were settling down comfortably. “Oh dear!” I thought, “three days’ voyage with a surplus of eighteen people, not counting half-a-dozen curs and parrots! If the norte gets up, what is to become of us?” They were strolling actors who had long secured all the available accommodation, so that we were given the choice of the deck, and it was with difficulty that I obtained for Lucian, who was prostrated with a severe attack of fever, a wee corner below. Presently his moans attracted the attention of the women. “What is the matter with the gentleman, is it yellow fever?” they inquired. “I shouldn’t wonder,” was my reply; whereupon the whole band made off and left us in undisturbed possession of our berths, where we slept the sleep of the just, and arrived at Carmen as fresh as larks. This place is the great depôt for woods known as Campeche, and drives a brisk trade.
I found my old friend Don Benito, who owns an island called Chinal on the Usumacinta, having mounds, tombs, or maybe basements of temples. Some excavations were made in them, when terra-cotta guns, 4 feet 11 inches long, with bullets likewise of terra-cotta, were brought to light. I was presented with some bullets, which are now in the Trocadéro. The only plausible explanation I can give for the presence of these guns in an Indian mound, is that after the great battle of Centla in Tabasco, in which Cortez’ artillery wrought so much destruction, the natives tried to copy this new war-engine, but being unacquainted either with iron or the effect of powder, they reproduced them in the material most familiar to them, fondly imagining that the result would be the same, and buried them later with their chief.
HOTEL GRIJALVA AT FRONTERA.
The journey from Carmen to Frontera takes twelve hours, where we land the very day twelve months after our first visit, and put up again at the detestable fonda. We learn that smallpox and yellow-fever have decimated and are decimating the town, but nothing daunted, for these epidemics seem to spare foreigners, I fill up the time I must wait here until a steamer calls, by collecting ancient pottery. Indian idols are of frequent occurrence in Central America, but up to the present time no one has cared to collect them, and the Mexican Museum does not possess a single specimen. Among those I picked up are various figures resembling more or less those of the table-land, while their differences of style connect them with the idols at Palenque. Our drawing shows the two best preserved, and although very rude in make, they are not devoid of interest. The figure to the left is a Quetzalcoatl, easily recognised from the serpent surrounding his head, and is the facsimile of a stone idol at Capan; while the larger to the right may have been meant for a priest or a “tecuhtli” knight.